10 May 2018

This week I am gearing up for the YWAM Kenya National Leadership Team meeting, which will take place 15th-17^th of this month in Rongo where Chris & Grace Opiyo are pioneering.   I have a couple of reports to present to the team and I am pushing various people to get their input to me in a timely manner so that I have all the data needed to write the report.   Rongo is in Migori County, 33km from Lake Victoria so, for the 4 of us in Mombasa, it is a 16-20-hour bus ride (depending on road construction and conditions in various areas).  Martin, Judy, myself (the three oldest members of our team) and Erick live here in the Mombasa area and we are thinking about hiring a van for this trip instead of bussing it.  We Our thought was that we could stop overnight at Athi River base where Baraza and Joram live and all six of us continue on together. If we all pool what we would have spent on individual round trip bus tickets we think it should come out about the same.  And, great advantage, we can have as many rest-stops as needed along the way 😊

I tried to organize a private van but failed so bus it is, and to be honest, I am not looking forward to the journey.

Then, just as we had worked through that challenge, the government presented us with another even bigger challenge.  It’s kind of a Luke 2:1-3 deal.  Last week, Dr Fred Matiangi, the Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Interior announced a “Entry Permit Verification Exercise.”    ALL foreigners (estimates say there are 100’000 of us) in Kenya have to travel to Nairobi and present themselves in person with all their work permit & business permit documents with official receipts, to the immigration department in Nyanyo House for verification.   This exercise involves “manual registration &verification; biometric registration-fingerprints, photo, signature; printing of the permit verification &registration form which serve as evidence of completion of the exercise” and is taking place between 21^st May-21^st July.   

I hear from those who have already been through the process that the average time standing in the queue is 5-6 hours.   As we were already travelling through Nairobi on our way to Rongo; Martin, Judy and I are going to travel earlier, stop for 2 days in Nairobi to comply with the Exercise before travelling on to Rongo.   The goal of this exercise is to expose foreigners who are in the country illegally, find out who has and has not been paying taxes and replace the old paper work permit with a digital card, similar to the national identity card (or a US driver’s license).